In the past, many got married for sex and thus for personal fulfillment. Nowadays, many don’t see a need to get married to get sex. Yet, whether married or not, people were not being personally fulfilled. How do marriage, sex, and personal fulfillment come together, if at all?
Hi, my name is Terence, and I’m your host for Reading and Readers, a podcast where I review Christian books for you. Today I review “Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be” by Christopher Ash. 176 pages, published by Crossway in August 2016. Available via Amazon Kindle for USD10.16 and via Logos for USD10.79.
Christopher Ash is Writer-in-Residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge. He is a full-time preacher, pastor, teacher, and writer. According to Amazon, he has 40 titles and there is one tantalising title I would like to read, “The Book Your Pastor Wishes You Would Read (but is too embarrassed to ask)”. But that is a book for another day.
Today I review Ash’s book on marriage.
Anyone who intends to get married should go for a pre-marriage counselling course. I say this even to non-Christians. And if you are reluctant to sit down with a pastor, you should get a book to go through together.
Marriages include arguments. I could also say many marriages end with arguments. The tragedy is some of those arguments could have been avoided. When one says, “My dream is to have children.” And the other shocked says, “But dear, I don’t intend to have children.” This is a conversation they should have had before they got married.
For Christians such conversations is ever more important because God does not approve of divorces. If the marriage is not working, the biblical answer is: make it work.
Today’s book is not just helpful for those about to get married.
If you have been married long, this book will strengthen your marriage.
Bizarrely, if you are single, this book will also strengthen your single life. More on that later.
Let’s open the book.
In the introduction, the fundamental statement put to us is:
We ought to want what God wants in marriage.
Ash later on continues:
… when we ask what God wants, we are asking what is best for us. What is best for us is not what we want, but what he wants. When I ask what God wants for marriage, I am saying that I want my marriage to cut with the grain of the universe.
Wow. Your love for one another, this private connection between a man and a woman is part of a cosmic design.
If you have never considered marriage in that light, there is more to come. In fact whatever you think marriage is, put that aside. Make a commitment to hear from God first. So if whatever God says goes against what you think marriage is about, go with God. This is how Ash ends the introduction chapter, with a call to repentance.
Table of Contents
Baggage and Grace
But what happens if God, who is awesome and holy, wants what I don’t want? What if, in the light of his holiness, he exposes me? The part I have kept hidden from family and friends, and frankly, intended to keep hidden from my future spouse?
And so Christopher Ash, theologian and pastor, right at the start has a chapter titled, “A Word about Baggage and Grace”. I will just read the section headings and you will see why you need not fear God’s will for you.
- The Bible Speaks to Those Whose Sexual Pasts Are Spoiled
- Jesus Christ Offers Forgiveness and Restoration To Those With Spoiled Sexual Pasts
- God’s Grace Enables Us to Live Lives of Purity
The chapter ends with six questions and discussion points. Let me read question 4.
Question 4:
If you are (or may one day be) married, what kind of “baggage” do you think you bring into marriage, in your thinking and expectations?
If you are reading this book on your own, that is great for your self-reflection, but what about your fiance? The temptation here is to think he or she doesn’t need to know your past. But your past, whether you want to or not, in one way or another, will affect the marriage.
But if you share your deepest darkest secrets, what happens if your fiance cancels the wedding? Or what if one day she takes this painful part of your life and throws it in your face?
The fear bubbles up and chokes, and tempts you to do what you have always done. Hide.
“Hahhaha… question 4 is asking about baggage? I guess my baggage is I once forgot my baggage at the airport.”
The couple laughs. Love makes lame jokes funny. Quick! Let’s read the next chapter before something ruins the moment.
It takes courage to answer soul-baring questions. It takes wisdom to navigate this treacherous waters, which is why I encourage couples to invite their pastor into pre-marriage discussions.
A good and experienced pastor will establish a safe space and frame the discussion to ensure that the couple does not dwell on the baggages but eventually move on to the next part: what comes after question 4, I quote:
Pause to bring this “baggage” quietly before God. Pray through the truth of grace in this chapter and ask God to put them deep in your heart. Claim the forgiveness and cleansing of Christ for your past.
After this point, you have: 1) responded to the call to repent and 2) received the gift of grace. No matter how dirty and unworthy you think you are, you need Jesus. No matter how clean and pure you think you are, you also need Jesus. You are now ready to read Chapter 2: Married for a Purpose.
Chapter 2 is a good example of what to expect from the rest of the book. So I will spend most of my time here, then quickly outline what to expect from the rest of the book, share two criticisms, and finally conclude the book review.
Married For a Purpose
Ash starts each chapter with a story. This is how he starts Chapter 2.
Laura felt lonely and bitter. She and Andy had been married for four years now. She thought back to their wedding day, which had been amazing.
Fast forward to the last paragraph of the story.
To be honest, marriage for Laura was really not all it had been cracked up to be. It really didn’t match the description on the tin, or not the description given her by that pastor. And in her bitterness she wondered if there was really any point in keeping it all going, if the rest of her life was going to be like this. What was the point?
Ash tells us the standard Christian answer: The point of marriage is to have children, to demonstrate faithfulness, and to preserve social order.
Ash then does my favourite thing, which is to open up the Bible. He expounds first from Genesis 1:26-31, which includes these familiar verses: “God created man in his own image, … male and female he created them” and “God saw everything that he had made, and it was very good.”
But I bet you have never heard his interpretation before. As he unpacks the verses, he eventually reaches a conclusion. The marriage motto is sex in the service of God.
“That can’t be right! Marriage is more than sex!”
Ash already knows what’s going through our minds so I will let him deflect our indignation.
Like all mottos, this simplifies my point. I do not mean to suggest that marriage is only about sex. But it is sex that distinguishes marriage from any other friendship or partnership. By “sex” in this motto, I mean a shorthand for the whole of marriage as it develops and grows out of its heart and core of sexual intimacy and faithfulness. Sex is shorthand for the marriage relationship in all its fullness: in intimacy, friendship, partnership, fun, and faithfulness. The motto is to remind us that the whole business of marriage in all its fullness is to be lived in the loving joyful service of God, as we look outward from our marriages and as couples seek to care for God’s world together.
The big insight is not ‘sex’. Until recently, everyone knew that sex and marriage came as a package. The big insight is in the words ‘in the service of God’, which he explains further.
The next passage is Genesis 2:15-25. This contains the must read verses on marriage, “It is not good that the man should be alone” and also “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Interestingly, Ash tells us how Genesis 2:18 is wrongly understood. The text says, “It is not good that the man should be alone” but does Adam being alone mean he was lonely?
Ash makes this distinction and draws out the implication. If Adam was lonely, then this verse means God designed marriage to solve loneliness. But what does that mean for single men and women? Or even the married men and women who still feel lonely.
Ash writes:
For those who are married, their marriages ought indeed to be places of fellowship that are remedies for loneliness. But marriage is not the remedy for loneliness. Wherever there is fellowship there is God’s remedy for loneliness. Not all human beings are able to marry, but all human beings are invited into fellowship with God and with one another in Jesus Christ.
I like how Ash puts it here:
This irony, that we expect so much of marriage but find it disappointing, is an irony the Bible understands perfectly. It calls it idolatry.
But if Adam was not lonely, but was as the verse says, alone. Then, reading that verse in the wider context, we see that Adam was alone in his task to care for the garden. So God created Eve so that Adam was not alone. And they were to have children who have more children, all in order to take care of God’s creation.
Ash writes:
Surprisingly, the key to a good marriage is not to pursue a good marriage, but to pursue the honor of God. We need to replace this selfish model of marriage with one in which we work side by side in God’s “garden” (that is, God’s world), rather than gaze forever into each other’s eyes.
The Rest of the Book
Let me read the titles for the remaining chapters along with my short comments.
Chapter 3: What is the Point of Having Children? Many couples who struggle with this will find an answer here.
Chapter 4: What is the Point of Sex and Intimacy? A good read for soon-to-be married for those long married and also for singles.
Chapter 5: God’s Pattern for the Marriage Relationship. It’s not obvious what this chapter is about so let me quote something from this chapter. I quote:
I was reading a book of marriage services for Christians from different denominations and noticed that the list of suggested Bible readings omitted the only three readings in the New Testament which are directly addressed to husbands and wives (Eph. 5:22–33; Col.3:18–19; 1 Pet. 3:1–7). This would have struck me as curious, except that all three Bible passages tell wives to submit to their husbands, and I am sure were omitted because the compilers simply could not stomach this teaching.
As a young man, I too could not stomach this teaching because, you know, equal rights. God’s command for the wife to submit has been used by abusive husbands to abuse their wives. But when I learnt to read it in context in consideration with what the Bible as a whole says about submission, I can see God’s design for marriage. But it wasn’t easy to overcome years of social programming. Hence, the call to repentance; to make a commitment to God’s Word first.
As one man against the world, Ash has to clearly show submission in marriage is truly God’s pattern. And we need to break out of what we think it looks like and consider what it truly looks like. It is not God’s design for the husband to be a tyrant and the wife a mouse, nor is it God’s design for the wife to be bossy and the husband to abdicate his responsibility. If you think otherwise, repent!
Chapter 6 is titled “What is the Point of the Marriage Institution?” It answers the wider society questions like, “Why marry when you can just live together?”
Chapter 7 is a pleasant surprise in a book about marriage. It’s not a question a pastor would obviously ask in a pre-marriage counselling: “Is it Better to Stay Single?” If the couple is a high-risk for cold feet, this question could make one (or both) run. On the other hand, this much needed perspective on marriage could help both make an informed decision with a happier outcome.
Chapter 8 asks, “What is the Heart of Marriage?” Oh, what would be your answer? God, Jesus? Ah, the safe Sunday School answer. Not wrong, but not what Ash has here. Love? Close.
As Christopher Ash puts it beautifully:
… the reason that faithfulness lies at the heart of marriage is that faithfulness lies at the heart of God, and therefore at the heart of the universe. Those of us who are married are called to keep the covenant promises of marriage, because God keeps his covenant promises.
With that whirlwind run through the book, let me mention two criticisms to round up the review.
Criticisms
The first is from Chapter 3, “What is the Point of Having Children?” Here, he makes a strong and powerful biblical case for children. I am just not sure whether he has over-reached. I quote:
If you regard children as a curse and don’t want them, don’t get married!
From a Christian perspective, whether married or not, obviously we must not see children as a curse.
I just wonder whether if a couple comes to him and do not to have children, not because of exceptional circumstances, but simply as a matter of choice, would Ash tell them not to get married?
My second criticism is from Chapter 6, “What is the Point of the Marriage Institution?” In arguing against co-habitation, does he over-simplify his analysis? I quote:
… sex outside marriage is always sex “under law” (as it were): always seeking to prove, always striving to do well enough to keep the other one in the relationship, always anxious lest at any time the other may decide there is not enough in it for him or her, always under trial.
For context, Ash is making the contrast with sex within marriage which is “sex under grace”. There is no pressure to keep the relationship going with good sex because the relationship is secured by a vow to God and to one another.
But when Ash says that sex outside marriage is always seeking to prove, always striving to do well, always, always, always, I can imagine a co-habitating couple scrunching their forehead saying, “No. That is not true.”
They go on to describe their sexual relationship as a give-and-take, learning to love one another with their bodies, in language and tones similar to a married couple’s. So while I completely agree with Ash’s distinction between “sex-under-grace” vs “sex-under-law”, I think some co-habitating couples would not recognise his description as valid since they practise a resemblance of sex-under-grace.
And so, I think Ash missed an opportunity to present a more nuanced commentary here. Could he have angled his comments so that some of those co-habitating couples who think whatever they have is good and great, sees that what they have is merely a resemblance, not the reality of what is good. Good as in God is good. Good as in Grace is good.
Before I conclude, I have to tell readers what you don’t get in this book. You don’t get an in-depth discussion on how to manage financials as a couple. Or how to effectively communicate. Or how to resolve conflicts. Or despite the motto being “sex in the service of God”, there is no how to have great sex. For that, you have to look at other books.
This is not a criticism of Ash’s book. What he set out to do, he achieved them brilliantly. This book explains how marriage is for God. And truly, while everything else is important, none is more important than knowing marriage is for God.
Let me end this review by quoting my favourite passage in the book. This passage reminds me of the purpose of my own marriage and makes me want to do better for God.
I quote:
… I like to think that men and women may say to themselves as they watch a Christian marriage: “I have never seen God. Sometimes I wonder, when I look at the world, if God is good, or if there is a God. But if he can make a man and woman love one another like this; if he can make this husband show costly faithfulness through sickness as well as health; if he can give him resources to love when frankly there is nothing in it for him; well, then he must be a good God. And if he can give this wife grace to submit so beautifully, with such an attractive gentle spirit under terrible trials, then again he must be a good God.” If you are married or preparing for marriage, pray that others may be able to say this of you in the years ahead.
Outro
This is a Reading and Reader’s review of “Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be” by Christopher Ash. 176 pages, published by Crossway in August 2016. Available via Amazon Kindle for USD10.16 and via Logos for USD10.79.
Thank you for listening. Bye bye.